COncEPT is collaboration between EU companies and research organisations with the objective to develop a new and novel Portable Computed Topography (PCT) system to perform total structural integrity inspection of composite Wind Turbine Blades (WTB) without taking them out of service.
The importance of this project cannot be underestimated; Electricity use in the EU is increasing rapidly, and continues to be dominated by fossil fuels with high carbon emissions. Significant improvements in energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy resources are needed to reduce these emissions and improve the environment. This means that a further increase in the use of wind turbines is needed to support these initiatives for sustainable and renewable energy sources.
Composite materials are essential to realise these targets efficiently, because they are lightweight and corrosion resistant. However a small discontinuity in a composite material can seriously impair its in-service function and may lead to a critical fault with little or no visible sign. Failure to detect such a fault can, and has, resulted in catastrophic failure, endangering life and reducing public confidence, leading to restricted future wind turbine developments. The need to detect such small defects in the thickest sections of WTBs is only feasible by means of radiography with a nanofocus tube and CT image reconstruction routines.
So the development of a suitable in-service Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) technique is essential to allow European wind turbine manufacturers to successfully manufacture the most durable and lightweight designs, maximising efficiency and providing a competitive advantage over non-European competitors.
Hence, the COncEPT project is designed to deliver total solutions for total inspection requirements for the whole WTB industry.
The COncEPT Project is a collaboration between the following organisations; TWI Ltd, X-Tek Systems Ltd, Photonic Systems Ltd, General High Voltage Industries Ltd, Isotest Engineering srl, Innospexion ApS, Eon Plc, RWE nPower Plc,
Kaunas Technical University, London South Bank University and Germanischer Lloyd Wind Energy GmbH.
This project is managed and co-ordinated by TWI Ltd, and is partly funded by the European Commission under the Horizontal Research Activities Involving SMEs: Cooperative Research Programme reference COOP-CT-2006-032949.